Buddhism and self-deception

How can we logically manage to deceive ourselves? "Self-deception seems inescapably paradoxical. For the self to be both the subject and the object of deceit, one and the same individual must devise the deceptive strategy by which they are hoodwinked. This seems impossible. For a trick to work effectively as a trick, one cannot know how it works. Equally, it is hard to see how someone can believe and disbelieve the same proposition. Holding p and not-p together is, straightforwardly, to contradict oneself." Luckily, Buddhist thought offers a way out of this philosophical paradox. Katie Javanaud, a DPhil candidate in the faculty of theology and religion at Keble College at the University of Oxford, suggests a fascinating solution to a paradox of Western philosophy.